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Southern Illinois University Carbondale

The Pulitzer Center’s connections with Southern Illinois University Carbondale are deep: Bill Freivogel, on our original Advisory Council, is the former director of SIUC’s Department of Journalism and a long-time friend and colleague of Pulitzer Center Executive Director Jon Sawyer from their days at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. SIUC was one of the founding charter members of the Pulitzer Center Consortium when it formally launched in January 2009. SIUC began as Illinois’ second teachers college in 1869 with a dozen academic departments and an inaugural class of 143. It now ranks among Illinois’ most comprehensive public universities.

SIUC’s School of Journalism is housed in the College of Mass Communication & Media Arts. Kavita Karan is the School's interim director. WSIU Public Broadcasting operates Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television stations and National Public Radio (NPR) radio stations.

The annual Big Muddy Film Festival is an international event with competition screenings, documentary and narrative feature screenings, panel discussions and guest presentations of independent, non-traditional films. The School of Journalism is one of only five accredited journalism programs in Illinois, with an excellent traditional print newspaper, the Daily Egyptian, which as the school's website notes "serves as the flagship for a curriculum that goes way beyond chemicals on dead trees.”

Connected with the school is the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, which hosts numerous nationally renowned speakers and panelists on issues such as war, politics and the impact of digital media.

Student Fellows

Anna Spoerre is a sophomore at Southern Illinois University majoring in journalism and minoring in environmental studies and creative writing. She is a campus reporter for the student-run publication...

Kayli Plotner is a graduate student at Southern Illinois University, pursuing her Masters of Science in Professional Media Management, with a specialization in multimedia reporting. She has received...

Julia Rendleman grew up in southern Illinois. She graduated with a degree in political science from Loyola New Orleans in 2002 and received a masters degree in photojournalism from Southern Illinois...

Morgan Timms is a photojournalist at the Jackson Sun and a recent graduate of Southern Illinois University, where she studied psychology and photojournalism. During her time in college, Morgan was a...